Roads We've Traveled

Back to School: Part One

LEBANON, NH – When I called David Bouthillier, my best friend from St. Michael’s College, and pitched him the interview idea, he seemed surprised. Maybe even a little amused.

“I just did what I had to do at the time to raise the family and try to get by,” David said to me as we ate lunch at a pizza place called “Ziggy’s” located in Lebanon, New Hampshire, just across the border from Vermont. “Because…it wasn’t about me. It was about them.”

In May of 1991, David realized that he didn’t have enough credits to graduate from St. Michael’s College with his BA in Mathematics. Still, he didn’t want to put his life on hold. He and his fiancé, Michaelynn (now his wife of 25 years) went ahead and got married in September of 1991. The plan was for David to return to St. Michael’s, part-time, and complete his degree.

For a while Michaelynn worked and David traveled back and forth to Colchester an hour-and-a-half, without traffic) and started working towards completing his degree. But all that changed when Micki became pregnant and she and David had to decide whether or not it was worth it for him to travel back and forth to Burlington with one mediocre salary, or should David take a job and raise a family. The couple chose the latter.

However, when David was looking for work in 1992 and back then, the country was dealing with the financial fallout by the early 90’s recession. The jobs in the White River Junction area were few if nonexistent.

“I applied to a number of jobs there including McDonald’s and got turned down by everyone,” he said. “No one was hiring.”

So, David expanded his search, looking for anything where he could both earn a little bit of money and still be there to care for his child. The answer came when the local paper, “The Valley News” switched from an evening to a morning paper and its press operations switched from day to night. With Micki expecting their second child, Joshua. This meant job openings on the night shift which ended up being a plus for the couple, because Micki worked days and she and Dave did not have a lot of money for daycare. David could be home to watch Bethany while Micki was at work.

“The job paid next to nothing,” David said. “I didn’t care.”

For two years, Dave worked in the mail room and start-up and machine operator. Then he landed a job at in the press crew where he worked for an additional five years. Dave he liked the people with whom he worked, but distrusted management. David made the decision to leave the “The Valley News” in 1998 and pursue other opportunities.

He landed at a company called Centricut, a company that specialized in plasma cutting technology. Centricut operated on a 24 hour-a-day, five-day-a-week schedule. Again, David found himself working nights doing Quality Control. Shortly after David began working at Centricut they were acquired by their competitor, the New Hampshire-based Hypertherm: another major industry leader in plasma cutting tech. David continued to work quality control. He took a course in Autocad as he went and, in 2001 he would have another opportunity.

“There was an opening in the engineering department,” he said, “and even though I didn’t have a degree – I specifically told them I didn’t have a degree – I had a lot of measurement technique and mechanical background so they took me on board.”

As early as 2003, when David was on the engineering team, he was thinking about going back to school to complete his degree. Hypertherm, he said, was very supportive. Dave said they even have a college “back to school” officially called the Sponsored Degree Program which helps employees return to school, maybe to complete their bachelors, maybe to move on to their masters and they will pick up a significant chunk of the tuition costs to help make it happen. But, in 2003, he said, the timing was off. David’s kids were still young and he wanted to be there for them while they were growing up. They were involved in school activities and athletics and the preferred activity of the Bouthillier family, hockey. He decided to put his degree on hold again because of his family.

“I wanted to make sure they had a fulfilling experience, growing up,” David said. “For me not to be around just didn’t make any sense.”

He discussed his decision to put off going back to school with his supervisors. “They were very on-board,” he said. However, he said, it was made clear to him that when he decided to go back to school, Hypertherm would be supportive.

“It was a kick in the rear sometimes,” David said, “but it was really nice to have these people behind me the whole time.”

End Part One

In the next part, we explore David returning to school at St. Michael’s College with the help of his employer and we are introduced to another person who went back to school later in life.